An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island

An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island is a body of work a created for my MFA Thesis Exhibition. The initial idea was to create a series of 4 interactive animation booths that would each be focused on projecting a particular scene from a complete narrative. Upon entering the gallery the viewer is offered a selection of small Dinosaur Figurines before continuing to the space with the interactive booths. Each of the figurines contained a chip that was programmed to play either a scene of the complete narrative, or in some cases, a rare video relevant to that scene. As the viewer(s) approached a booth they would see a short animated loop playing. Each loop was also appropriate in that it was the background to the animated scene in that specific booth.

The interactivity (How it works):
The videos are playing off of Nexus 4 Phones provided by the @Lab. Each of the Dinosaur Figurines are mounted to an NFC chip (also provided by the @Lab) which when in contact with the back of the Nexus 4 will activate an assigned App. Kindly, Nathan Berger(@Lab Administrator) created an App that would loop a specific video (Video A) and then when activated by an NFC chip switch to playing a different video (Video B, Video C, etc.). Each chip could be assigned a different function. In this case, it was either to trigger Video B, or Video C. Once the video had played through the initial loop would begin again.
The phone and the chips were concealed to allow for some curiosity. I was more interested in how much each viewer explored the process.

The Narrative:
The animation series revolves around a group of younger individuals who, in the first part of the series, turn into dinosaurs and are warped into Outer Space. The exact cause is not concluded, but for the other 3 animation parts, they are trying to discover a way back home. This search is also left unresolved as the method of research becomes more and more emphasized. The visual aspects include very saturated, bright colors (in some cases psychedelic) to exaggerate the 2-D projection as an object. There is almost no specific camera movement and very limited character movement to accentuate the relationship between the viewer and the characters. Each scene is constructed around the individuals, or dinosaurs entering a space and using a method of storytelling to attempt to discover an answer. As the story is being told certain occurrences begin in the animation that are not quite directly related to the character’s story but somehow help the character’s move into the next scene.

You may view the animations for a limited time here:

An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island Part 1- Nuts and Eggs

An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island Part 2 – Desert and Sea

An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island Part 3 – Light and Smoke

An Egg, The Parrot, and Schwarzschild’s Island Part 4 – Dinosaur Sex Island